1. Field of the Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to wireless communication, and more particularly, to wireless communication by which communication between devices is performed using a media access control (MAC) address.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, a wireless communications environment provides greater convenience than a wired communications environment, since in a wireless communications environment installation and movement are easy and spatial restrictions are small. Devices used for wireless communication have a media access control (MAC) address which is a unique physical address, through which data can be transmitted.
A MAC address consists of a manufacturer code of 3 bytes and a serial code of 3 bytes, and is assigned to each device. That is, all devices may be distinguished by the manufacturer code and serial code of their MAC addresses.
Wireless communication apparatuses need to be paired with counterpart devices in order to carry out communications.
In the related art, in order to pair a wireless communication apparatus with a counterpart device, a method of physically inputting a MAC address of a counterpart device to a memory using an input device was used. However, such a method requires various processes for pairing between devices, and general users who do not use the input device cannot perform pairing.
In addition, if pairing is performed wirelessly, a pairing request signal and a pairing approval signal are broadcast to neighboring devices since a MAC address of a counterpart device is not known, so interference with neighboring devices may lead to malfunctioning.
Therefore, there is a need for methods for wireless communication with a counterpart device even when a MAC address of the counterpart device is not known.